How America Executes People

Spencer Lawton, the district attorney who secured Davis’ conviction in 1991, said he was embarrassed for the judicial system – not because of the execution, but because it took so long to carry out.

“What we have had is a manufactured appearance of doubt which has taken on the quality of legitimate doubt itself. And all of it is exquisitely unfair,” said Lawton, who retired as Chatham County’s head prosecutor in 2008. “The good news is we live in a civilized society where questions like this are decided based on fact in open and transparent courts of law, and not on street corners.”

“The jury in Troy’s case was deceived, witnesses were pressured, and virtually no one who looks at the case today would claim that he could be convicted, let alone sentenced to death, for the murder. Troy’s case makes clear that the death penalty system in the United States is broken beyond repair. It is arbitrary, discriminatory and it must be ended.” – Denny LeBoeuf, Director, Capital Punishment Project

Of note, in late March the US Supreme Court ruled in Connick v. Thompson that persecutors could not be held liable for illegal or unethical behavior in cases they oversee. So, it would appear that the Troy Davis case was the icing on the cake. Slate has a good run-down on that debacle.

If a society is unable to establish basic ethical standards regarding what constitutes doubt, and in this case the obvious tampering of the case by the prosecutors places Davis’ conviction in doubt, then the justice system is broken.

This is the text book case of why the Death Penalty is a problem. Given the new information, a stay of execution should have been standard. But, people want their blood. That much is clear.